Team randomiser (anti-stacking system)

It's not about numbers, it's about some players being better than other players. I've played enough centers and this community is small enough (I play exclusively 6s) to the point where I know every player that frequents centers and I've been in the competitive scene long enough to know all the players that also play ESEA/CEVO.

Having an ELO system based on hours/centers played would be bad for the reason you stated. But I don't see the relevance of that because we're talking about scrambling teams randomly. 

Any fair PUG system has either captains or a team scramble. Does that mean every single pug will be close and none will be rolls? No. So why do they implement it? Because it helps.

Let me address both of your concerns:

1.) This won't stop all stomps.

A: You're correct. However, the very nature of something being random (and the option to scramble again after teams are set) makes it more likely to be balanced than it currently is.

2.) But I want to play with my friends.

A: You're free to do so. This is probably the most selfish reasoning behind being against this suggestion, however. This is equivalent to thinking that 6s shouldn't be included as a game mode because you'd rather play highlander. The world doesn't revolve around you or your friends, and there's plenty of centers and the ability to rent servers to create your own. 

at least we can have a warning of a "possible unbalanced game" so we wont waste so much time waiting to finally join stomp/flobby !

This needs to be seriously addressed ASAP.

I'm starting to feel that TF2C is becoming a real waste of time since I can't remember the last balanced lobby I played. Maybe adding a feature when creating the lobby to prevent it from launching in case of a stack, and leader can still force the start regardless. Maybe adding a warning sign on the lobby page, dunno just do something

ofc you'll have to come up with a system to decide whether the game is going to be balanced or not.

The thing is that stacks happen sometimes. It would be worse I feel to have the teams be randomized than to have an uneven distribution of skill level. If you want a better distribution of skill level a better way to have it done would be to have lobbies marked for certain skill levels and even putting restrictions on those skill levels.

Now that the devs have dealt with most of the infrastructure, this should be addressed soon. In fact, some work has already been done on this...

The thing is that stacks happen sometimes. It would be worse I feel to have the teams be randomized than to have an uneven distribution of skill level. If you want a better distribution of skill level a better way to have it done would be to have lobbies marked for certain skill levels and even putting restrictions on those skill levels.

I don't see how randomized teams could possibly be worse than playing against a stack.  Sure there might still be a stack occasionally, it certainly wouldn't guarantee against it but what it would Guarantee against is people purposely stacking the teams.

I don't see how randomized teams could possibly be worse than playing against a stack.  Sure there might still be a stack occasionally, it certainly wouldn't guarantee against it but what it would Guarantee against is people purposely stacking the teams.

 
Because it removes all choice of which team you're on. Many people play lobbies with friends, or even if not with friends, with people they recognize from other lobbies they've played. The thing is that most often in my experience people don't intentionally stack; the main concern when deciding which team to join is having a slot for a class you play. By having lobbies where teams are randomized a lot of the friendship and camaraderie is removed from the lobby and teammates are reduced to randomized picks generated by a computer algorithm. In fact this is one of the things people hate most about pub games in TF2.

I know that this won't apply to all lobbies, but I, personally, will not be playing in any lobbies that are randomized if the feature is implemented.

I only asked for randomised teams as a stopgap while the admins took months getting their heads around a balanced team picker. As it's taking months for the randomiser too, anything at all would be a huge improvement.

 

I don't see how randomized teams could possibly be worse than playing against a stack.  Sure there might still be a stack occasionally, it certainly wouldn't guarantee against it but what it would Guarantee against is people purposely stacking the teams.

 
Because it removes all choice of which team you're on. Many people play lobbies with friends, or even if not with friends, with people they recognize from other lobbies they've played. The thing is that most often in my experience people don't intentionally stack; the main concern when deciding which team to join is having a slot for a class you play. By having lobbies where teams are randomized a lot of the friendship and camaraderie is removed from the lobby and teammates are reduced to randomized picks generated by a computer algorithm. In fact this is one of the things people hate most about pub games in TF2.

 

I know that this won't apply to all lobbies, but I, personally, will not be playing in any lobbies that are randomized if the feature is implemented.

 

I personally enjoy playing against people I know so that I can taunt them after I kill them.  

The idea that people join based on slot is kind of counter to you point that people want to play only with friends or people they know as teams with people I know from other lobbies or have friends on don't always have the class I want.  Which is it?

I personally enjoy playing against people I know so that I can taunt them after I kill them.  
 
The idea that people join based on slot is kind of counter to you point that people want to play only with friends or people they know as teams with people I know from other lobbies or have friends on don't always have the class I want.  Which is it?

 
You seem to be implying that both aren't possible at the same time. Tell me, how many people do you see sitting in spectate in lobbies? What do you think they are doing there? If I'm playing lobbies with a friend we tend not to join lobbies where we'll not be able to play together and don't have slots for classes we both would like to play. In addition, if I'm playing alone, or even in some cases with a friend and I see someone I know/like on a team I will join that team provided a slot is available for a class I play.
 
Furthermore, you're presenting a false dichotomy in the examples I gave. I'm simply giving some examples of why a scramble can be bad for lobbies.

Tell me, how many people do you see sitting in spectate in lobbies? What do you think they are doing there? 

We'll I'm pretty sure what they are doing there is that they have opened that lobby at some point and might not even actually be there anymore.

You seem to be implying that if it is implemented as an option to the people making the lobbies that all lobbies will be that way and it cannot be optional.

You seem to be implying that if it is implemented as an option to the people making the lobbies that all lobbies will be that way and it cannot be optional.

I've not implied that. In fact, I've specifically addressed it in my earlier post. I'm simply advocating against the idea; in my opinion it goes against what competitive tf2 stands for.

I don't think you understand the problem. The problem is it's often easy to predict a 5-0 win before the match by looking at the lineups. One solution is to use a team balancing algorithm as Trath or I did with our respective mix groups, but accounting for the non-homogeneity of lobbies by using Gentleman Jon's code. A temporary solution is to simply provide an option to randomise the teams. 

What is it that you think competitive TF2 stands for?  Playing only with people you have played with before or know already?  I would think you could be competitive with friends and try to play against some of them sometimes ... ya know ... for the competition.

Edited by The Once and Future King, 14 July 2014 - 03:55 PM.

I believe I've maid my stance on this fully understood. If people want to continue to argue against things I haven't said or put words in my mouth that's fine, but I don't see the need to continue to explain my position at this point. It looks very clear to me.

How about the lobby leader  gets to choose (or its a vote) to scramble the teams in that half the people in the lobby will be switched to the opposite side of their slot. You can of course only do this once.

A vote would be the best idea, it should require 6 to activate.

I think an optional randomized is a great idea. If the community doesn't like the feature they can join a lobby that isn't randomized. Certain groups of players will be against this despite it being optional because they have to play with friends against pub status players for self esteem. I don't think a vote system would work because the side with friends will always vote no and if it did randomly change off a vote a lot of people would leave the lobby. In other words if 6/18 voted yes I feel like over half of the players in the lobby would leave. It has to be warned ahead of time and shown in a legend.

Edited by Taddy, 15 July 2014 - 01:08 AM.

Oh, sorry, I was thinking of only 6s. For HL, I think 9 would be required. Even if like 5 of the friends voted no, theres still a chance for a bunch of the enemy team and the remaining of the stacking team to vote for it.

What's the point of having a vote if the goal of the vote is to in essence force one outcome? If people are playing with friends, they shouldn't have to be randomized.

What's the point of having a vote if the goal of the vote is to in essence force one outcome? If people are playing with friends, they shouldn't have to be randomized.

I agree that voting is the worst way to go about this.  Lobby leaders could choose what type of lobby to create and people who are that concerned about having to be on the same team as their friend (understandable if they are a medic+Heaby or demo) then they could play in non-randomized lobbies.  No one wants to go into a lobby not knowing what type of lobby it is.  That would be like having a vote on weather the lobby requires mumble or not, you just want to know those things before dedicating to playing the lobby.